Such widespread discontent creates an opening for a talented public figure to think BIG. Nobody's expecting her to up the ante, although they ought to expect it for both historical reasons – it has been done before – and for reasons of her personality. While most ponder the patheticness of poll numbers with academic detachment, she sleeps soundly, dreaming of purple and the day she can declare "Alea iacta est!"

I will stand up for Althouse early in this thread: she detailed her reasons for "why McCain lost" her. I don't remember any of those reasons but, in retrospect, McCain was a terrible, terrible candidate in a terrible, terrible year for the Republican brand.

Moreover, Democrats would have gotten a lot more done under the McCain administration and McCain, now freed from his presidential ambitions once and for all, is back to being a solid centrist senator.

If Sloan is wrong, and I believe he is, unemployment has bottomed out. A good many people who called the September Swoon two years ago say another shoe is going to drop in the second half of the year. If so, the Demos, Keynesians, and Lefties in general are going to spend a long time in the Wilderness.

PS Very droll, tg. (But I would vote for her - she at least can admit her mistakes)

Finally, my fellow TeaPartyPatriots, it's time to strike while the iron is hot and end SocialSecurity!

But, seriously: the problem with this poll is that once most Americans get a good look at the alternative - a preview was offered by the NYT's article about the teapartiers - BHO isn't going to look so bad after all.

Those who are trying to pull Palin to the fringes are doing her a disservice since relatively few people want strong fiscal conservatism in practice. She - or someone else - could help the U.S. and help themselves by moving towards the center and by striking against the corrupt establishment where they're weakest.

Well, what exactly has he done to deserve reelection? A Nobel Peace Prize for voting "present" isn't enough, at least in my view.

He has put together probably the most corrupt Administration in at least the last 50 years. It includes an admitted tax cheat at Treasury overseeing the IRS. The Attorney General, who had been instrumental in trading presidential pardons for cash and political favors at the end of the Clinton Administration has dropped investigations of political supporters, dismissed admitted charges against Black Panthers, and has repeatedly thwarted the IG of his department. Other IGs have been removed for whistle blowing. The Administration is filled with far left advocates in major policy positions, with Justice probably being the worst, with a former terrorist attorney now in charge of prosecuting those very same terrorists.

Meanwhile, he pushed, then signed into law the almost trillion dollar "stimulus" package that cannot be shown to have actually created a single job (and likely destroyed a number of them), as well as a budget containing over 8,000 earmarks and raises for federal employees. He has also pushed health care "reform" legislation that will increase costs, reduce quality and choice, and likely not provide insurance to that many of the currently uninsured. He has also pushed Cap and Trade legislation that would significantly increase energy costs in this country to no discernible advantage to the citizens of this country. And, as that bill appears headed to failure, his EPA appears to be ready to step in and implement similar hugely costly CO2 regulation, again, with no benefit to the citizens of this country.

In his rush towards (Fascist) socialism, the President has taken over and will likely ultimately destroy two of our big three car makers, compromising the Rule of Law while doing that by giving illegal preferences to the auto unions over secured creditors. He also took over a bunch of banks, but propped up some that really needed to be liquidated. The TARP money, when repaid, instead of going back to the treasury, is being spent on other leftist programs.

The President has either broken already, or has threatened to break, pretty much every promise he made running for President. This started with him deciding not to take federal money for the election, and most recently his Administration is threatening to raise taxes on the middle class to pay for his deficit spending, several times that of his predecessor, even in his worst years. And where did that deficit come from? Much of it came from the "stimulus" package, much of which went to pay off his constituencies, notably federal and state employees and those who don't pay income taxes.

So, to summarize, President Obama is pushing extremely unpopular legislation, has broken his campaign promises, has spent money at an extraordinary rate that we don't have, and run an amazingly corrupt Administration.

So, it is not surprising that a majority of Americans don't think that he deserves reelection. The amazing thing is that so many do.

Or even middle class. He was raised primarily by a grandmother who was a bank VP and went to private schools, then ushered off to Harvard after a mediocre showing as an undergrad.

He's led a life of privilege from start to finish, no matter how many pretensions he makes to the contrary. That people aren't generally aware of this tells you how pathetic the media coverage in the run-up to the 2008 election was.

Many Americans have a very broad idea of what constitutes "middle class". I personally only classify a person as "upper class" if they've never had any need to work for a living -- the Kennedys and Bushs of the world.

So I can see calling Obama "middle class". He never knew any kind of material want, but he didn't have the kind of crazy money where he didn't have to go out and earn a living.

His failures and betrayals were more toward those on the left. He has ratified Bush's policies on Iraq and Afghanistan. He has not been precipitate in shutting down Gitmo or pushing for CIA trials. On the left, his initiatives on health care, cap & trade, and mandatory circumcisions have all stalled or failed....He has been unsuccessful but his failures, thank God, have mostly been with left wing programs.

I have to give an attaboy to Obama for stating that he wants two new nucular plants built. It's something that this country absolutely needs and he's probably the only politician that could accomplish this. Jane Fonda and friends will have a hard time saying anything bad about the endeavor. Unfortunately, like everything else, he probably doesn't mean it and nothing will be built. This man is becoming the biggest nothing in the country.

2. I hat tip Drudge from time to time, basically when I'm writing about the way Drudge presents something. He gets his share of links from me.

3. I actually didn't get this story from Drudge. I got it from Memeorandum. It's Memeorandum that I get stuff from the most and don't hat tip, but Memeorandum is an automatic aggregator. So I link to it sometimes, but not every time I start there.

Sorry but anyone who voted for Obama is gullible at best and a fool at worst. McCain was more qualified in every area and he understands America and Americans. One Obama speech was enough for me to see that Obama was a typical elite leftist with disdain for his country and I could never vote for him. And Palin is a genius compared to Biden, so that excuse won't work either.

You hear this a lot, but I am unware of actual evidence on this matter. How would we know, since it's never been tried (in recent memory).

Well I think people want fiscal conservatism but don't want programs they feel important to be cut. For example, the liberals would be delighted to see the defense budget slashed by 98% (see that's saving money!) whereas conservatives think there could be some cost cutting in the $1 trillion annual spending on social programs. In either case you're going to find resistance.

The problem with being President is that people blame you for everything that is wrong. So of course a poll that asks if the President should be re-elected will turn out this way when the economy is down.

Obama fares better than Congress as whole, but worse than an individual Congressman. The 2010 election should be interesting.

I can't agree more. This country has been on a spending spree for decades now with less and less of the nation actually contributing anything to the treasury. Somehow liberals think you can just continue to sock it to the wealthy and keep racking up the bar tab.

Well for those who haven't been paying attention, I suggest you look at Greece right now and see what out of control government spending gets you.

Should the GOP pick up a significant number of seats in 2010, Bambi is going to have some real problems. If he can't get his pet legislation passed with his huge Congressional majorities now, he's pretty much toast till 2012 unless he actually decides to move to the center ala Clinton. Based upon his entitlement mentality and narcissim, I doubt he will.

Jim, your point about Obama not being working class... who is? Your buddies Romney, McCain, Pawlenty and even Jindal were raised and educated in elitist environments. Your white light McCain came from a long list of Annapolis educated men, the most elite education money can't buy. The only shining light with a "common" man theme is Sarah Plain, oops Palin, who couldn't decide where she wanted to go, quit 5 schools and finally graduated after 6 years. She quit her elected job and is now trying to forge a career based on slamming and being critical of who is in office now. That is not going to get her elected(Thank God).

The elitist schtick can only get you so far, there has to be substance there.

No one claims (or no one I know claims) that McCain et al. are not elites.

The claim is that O!bama tries to pretend he isn't elitist when he truly is. He is untouched by so many of America's issues with class and race because he was largely raised outside the hard issues. Only when he got into American politics did he pick up Hillary's ability to absorb accents.

He's a rich guy who's had things handed to him. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. Ted Kennedy was a rich elitist. He was a powerful force in the Senate for almost 50 years.